only sorry about the unusual mixture of standard programs compared with puppy...

with fatdog64 I have the same problem i have with puppy5.2. When I reboot does not start the process of creating the save file.
So every time I reboot is the first time.

It isn't the best way, but I solved the problem in this way:
I booted from cd on a desktop Puppy5.2 and I created a lupusave file with nothing.
I restarted the desktop and I copied the newly created file on a pendrive.
I inserted the pendrive in the laptop and I started Puppy 5.2.
Puppy5.2 recognized the lupusave file and uploaded it, so I completed the quick start Puppy. The first time you reboot, it seems that it is not done correctly the closure procedure. On the next reboot, the changes were saved and then took over the classic procedure at the end of the session.
I solved and I hope I have helped others to solve a problem, however, shows a bug of Puppy5.2 at least in the configuration I mentioned.

This was a very well build laptop which was top of the line at the time. The XP installation finally got so slow it was unusable. I first tried Linux on it with live CD's in 2006, and all ran reasonably well.
However, ever since April 2010 (or the introduction of the KMS into the kernel), the graphics chip has work very, very few of the newer kernels, and even when it does work, it still intermitently crashes. On most distros with 2.6.29 or later, it just will not run stably.

I found that PCLinux)S 2010 seems to be the most stable, though it also crashes, but much less frequently. I just did a frugal install of Lupu 5.2, and it too has difficulty with this graphics chip. It DOES boot to a desktop with i915.modeset=0 as a kernel parameter, but will fail to boot to a desktop about 2 out of five boots.

However, when it does boot to a desktop, EVERYTHING works beautifully and little or no configuration is necessary.

So, for all of those laptop owners with this chipset, my condolences. It looks like it may some time soon just require that this old computer be put out to pasture. But for now, there seems to be plenty of life left in her.

I found this tool which works for the volume keys on my compaq. There are several keyboards to choose from. Does not create any entries using kdepup in the menu- you have to do that manually but there seems to be one in the applications folder. I will be trying it out on other puppies and posting back.
The debian pkg puts a entry in the system folder but you need to put a link to /usr/bin/keytouchd in the startup folder so it starts up automatically. In the /usr/bin folder you will find keytouch-keyboard-bin which allows you to select the keyboard model. I just used keytouch in 5.2.2rc

Runs every puppy tried (lots) -Carolina, Pemasu's Upups, Waries currently run as live OS (why not?).
Everything works incl Chrome, and all wifi, sync, and output functions.
Win7 Pro not disturbed, and works when needed.

Old Fuji (see below) still reliable after decade+ daily grind, so expecting this 2012 one to be long-lived also? Good keyboards & screens on Fuji's.

But no added bling, or swapping of window-managers etc - thus keeping it simple and useful, for these older machines (IMHO)
which really means live-CD and frugal installs
don't need complex OS choices or GRUB
and, as the gurus advise, always pfix=ram with any new version.

Swap file essential, or at least very useful for best performance.

------------------------------------------------

Compaq Armada E500 256 RAM
Compaq Armada M700 256

Wary may be best in long run but
Classic 214X -top10 is reliable for solid use on these Compaq laptops from last century, even when only 128 RAM.

live-CD and frugal installs, with swap file
run with no problems on these 10 year old laptops
with various added RAM - see above (recommend get min 256 RAM)
and do keep it simple and basic if needing a workhorse
with no added bling, or swapping of window-managers etc
---------------------------------------------------------------------
No more testing on old Compaqs will be done
(not necessary with above puppies being good enough)Edited_times_total

I have a Compaq Presario F756NR Notebook. It's only a few years old, but it has no HDD and a broken optical drive. Puppy 5.25 runs very smoothly off of a 2GB flash drive. Everything hardware-wise seems to work fine, except for the special fn keys (volume, media buttons, etc). Although the brightness keys work, which is interesting.

I haven't tried the solution posted above for these buttons, but I really don't feel the need to.

Anyway... the nVidia card, wireless card, touchpad driver, and all of that jazz were detected beautifully.

These problems are probably primarily due to hardware drivers for the economy Thinkpad Radeon board in this particular T43. Different T43's came with different graphics boards.

Don't know about the audio. But have never had Visual Analyzer detect the audio input or output in any puppy/wine/computer, though the program opens nicely, and says it runs in wine. So maybe not a Thinkpad problem.

(4.3.2 Operating system note: reportedly VESA is broken and devx is not currently available in this OS version. Despite good reliability experienced on the T43 above, I don't recommend any version of 4.3.2 at this time due to defacto abandonment of software version completion.)

I'm considering changing OS, and if I do, I'll report what the T43 runs on with the new OS.

Edit:

Sorry, forgot, the laptop sleep functions generally do not work correctly with this and some earlier Thinkpads I've owned using Puppy.

There is a new version of the Gecko Edubook out, with a new processor. It uses an Xcore86+ 1GHz processor; and there is an option to install 1 GB of RAM, too, which I have.

Here is a bit of the announcement dated 2011-05-16 by Michael Barnes of Norhtec:

"The new Xcore86+ is 70% faster than the previous Xcore86 Device on Chip yet consumes the same power as the original Xcore86. The new CPU uses 32bit RAM instead of 16bit RAM that allows the CPU to do more work per clock cycle. The Xcore86+ is faster than the AMD LX800, yet it uses less power, is less expensive and requires fewer components to build a device."

There are more details here: http://www.deviceonchip.com/

Anyway, I bought the new Edubook, with the intention of using Puppy as the OS. Puppy 5.2 booted from a USB flash drive, but xorg did not work so I had no GUI to work with. I then tried Wary 5.1.2 and the GUI worked fine "out of the box", but using Xvesa. I have a Belkin Wifi dongle (model F6D4050 v1) which also worked fine the first time.

On the other hand, I haven't been able to get any kind of video to work, nor even any of several video players I installed to open. Pmusic audio player opens but doesn't work.